What Does Purple Light Mean, and Where Did Each Meaning Start?

Which purple meanings are ancient, and which began in the 1930s?

Purple's spiritual meanings come in layers, and the layers are unusually easy to date.

Rank and royalty are the oldest, because the dye came from sea snails and cost more than most people could ever pay.

The Western church added penitence and preparation when violet became the color of Advent and Lent. Scripture adds a harsher note: in Mark 15:17, Roman soldiers put a purple cloak on Jesus to mock him as a king.

The newest layers are twentieth-century. The I AM Activity taught a violet flame of mercy and release, the Summit Lighthouse later placed Zadkiel on a violet ray, and 1970s chakra charts made violet the crown chakra's color.

Most confusion about purple comes from blending these rows. Someone who notices violet during Lenten prayer is standing in the church-calendar row, while someone repeating a violet-flame decree is inside a movement with its own teachers and texts.

Which angel is associated with purple?

Modern angel-color lists usually name Zadkiel for purple, and the pairing traces to the Summit Lighthouse. Its teaching places Zadkiel and a feminine counterpart called Holy Amethyst on the seventh, violet ray, serving from a spiritual retreat it locates over Cuba.

Nothing older supports the color: Zadkiel is not named in the Bible, and the later Jewish and occult lists that do name him give him roles such as mercy or rule over the planet Jupiter, with no color attached.

Popular websites repeat the pairing, usually without its date. Learn Religions' angel-color series, for example, describes the purple ray as "led by Archangel Zadkiel" and does not say where the idea came from.

Amethyst travels with the pairing through Holy Amethyst's name and through modern angel crystal guides, which tie the stone to contemplation. The stone's own lore is older and has nothing to do with angels.

Its Greek name, amethystos, means "not drunk," from a belief that the stone kept its wearer sober.

Amethyst also appears in the high priest's breastplate in Exodus 28:19 and as the twelfth foundation stone of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21:20.

The Hebrew stone name in Exodus, ahlamah, is translated differently across Bible versions, so which gem it meant is uncertain.

The color itself is mineral chemistry. The Gemological Institute of America describes amethyst as purple quartz, colored by traces of iron and natural irradiation.

The crown-chakra meaning is newer still. The rainbow scheme that makes the crown chakra violet was set out by Christopher Hills in Nuclear Evolution in the 1970s, while older tantric texts describe the chakras in other colors.

Why do churches use purple in Advent and Lent?

Purple marks Advent and Lent because the Roman Rite assigns it to those seasons. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 346, says violet or purple "is used in Advent and of Lent" and may also be worn at Offices and Masses for the Dead.

The same paragraph allows rose, where it is the practice, on Gaudete Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday in Lent. Both names mean "Rejoice," the first word of each day's entrance antiphon, so the lighter color marks a pause for joy partway through each season.

The color sequence is old: Pope Innocent III described one for the Roman church in a treatise written before his election in 1198, and later medieval practice settled violet on the penitential seasons.

Lent prepares for Easter through penance, and Advent prepares for Christmas through waiting.

The Church gives both the same color and, as liturgist Edward McNamara notes, its norms do not require different shades for the two.

Not every church follows the Roman color. Many Lutheran and some Anglican churches use blue in Advent, often called "Sarum blue," though liturgists have argued that the medieval Salisbury rite never used blue for Advent.

For most people, the calendar settles the question of purple seen in church. Violet cloth in December, or during the forty days before Easter, is the season's color chosen by rubric, not a sign aimed at one person.

When the season ends the color changes, to white at Christmas and Easter and to green in Ordinary Time between the great feasts.

Why do you see purple light when you meditate?

Purple or violet light behind closed eyes usually comes from the visual system itself. The eyes and brain never go fully dark, and meditation keeps the eyes closed and still long enough to notice colors that are always faintly present.

The dark background has a name, eigengrau, German for "intrinsic gray." Rod cells in the retina fire now and then with no light at all, and a 1980 study traced these "dark noise" events to single rhodopsin molecules switching on from heat alone.

Phosphenes add color and shape. Cleveland Clinic defines them as flashes of light "when there isn't an actual source of light entering into your eye," and light pressure on the eyeballs, such as resting the face in the hands, is a common trigger.

Afterimages explain many purple patches that appear right after the eyes close. When one type of cone cell tires from a strong color, the others take over for a while, so a green lamp tends to leave a magenta or violet afterimage that drifts and fades.

With open eyes, look for a source first: violet LEDs, ultraviolet black lights, and stained glass all throw purple light.

A purple spot that shows up only in a photograph is a camera question, since flash photography can turn dust into violet-tinted orbs in the frame.

Meditation traditions also have their own words for inner light. Buddhist meditation manuals describe a light sign, the nimitta, that can appear as concentration deepens, and they treat it as a marker of attention rather than a visitor.

A purple glow in meditation can be ordinary in origin and still matter to the person who sees it. The eye explains why the color appears, and the reader's own tradition decides what, if anything, to do with it.

Which purple flashes need an eye exam first?

A flash of colored light that is new, sudden, or increasing needs an eye exam before any spiritual reading. The National Eye Institute lists flashes of light in one or both eyes among the warning signs of retinal detachment.

The NHS gives the same advice in the UK: call NHS 111 or book an urgent optician appointment when flashes appear for the first time, arrive suddenly, or grow in number.

• New flashes in one or both eyes, especially with a shower of new floaters
• A dark curtain or shadow moving across part of your vision
• Flashes after an eye injury or eye surgery
• Colored lights with blurred or double vision, or with eye pain

Untreated, a detached retina can pull away further and cause permanent vision loss, the NEI warns.

See the eye doctor first, and bring any prayer or reflection to the experience afterward.